


Without Effect

by faithharkness



Series: In the Darkness of My Nights [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: AU-everybody lives, Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Brainwashing, Discussion of Torture, Gen, Jessika Pava & Poe Dameron friendship, Pava & Dameron BROTP, Snark, it's gonna get dark, rating for where it's going
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:31:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5889340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithharkness/pseuds/faithharkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They survived Starkiller.  Now, the reclamation of Ben Solo begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> One of the definitions of null is "without effect".

Jessika Pava looked at the four Resistance leaders sitting across the conference table from her. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I’m in the wrong meeting. Are you sure it wasn’t Poe you wanted?’

General Organa gave her a small smile. “No mistake. You are uniquely qualified for this position. In fact, Poe recommended you.”

“Huh. I’m going to have to arrange for a little, non-incapacitating accident.”

Admiral Ackbar coughed.

“Or possibly just switch his caff out,” she amended.

“This is serious, Lieutenant,” Ackbar said.

“I know. Believe me, I know. I get flippant when I’m scared and you don’t seem to understand what you are asking of me.”

“We’re asking you to help the Resistance,” General Organa said.

“All due respect, sir, but you are asking me to help the man who raped the mind of my best friend,” Jessika said, her tone sharp. She remembered Poe’s nightmares once they got him back from Jakku. She remembered sitting with him as he shuddered his way through the night. The nightmares seemed to have gotten worse the past few days, knowing that his torturer was on the base with them, even sedated as he was. Jess was close to having Poe admitted into a bed next to Finn’s if he didn’t start sleeping soon.

“And Dameron is the one recommending you for this duty. It is vital to our success against the First Order,” Admiral Statura said.

“Why me?” Jessika asked.

“Poe told me you’re a Force null. We need someone we trust whom we know can’t be influenced by the Force,” Leia explained. “Kylo Ren is still dangerous.”

“He’s a monster,” Jess argued. 

“He’s our son,” General Solo said.

“Well, kriff.”  
*****

“He doesn’t look like much,” Jess said, looking through the window in the door.

Kylo Ren— _Ben Solo,_ they were supposed to be calling him Ben Solo—was unconscious inside the room, strapped to the bed at his wrists, feet, shoulders and hips.

General Organa nodded. “But he’s everything. He’s my son.”

“Sir, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart and with all the respect in this quadrant, you need to stop that. I understand that he is your son and you and General Solo _want_ there to be something wrong with him that you can fix. But all I see when I look at him is an enemy. I see a monster that hurt my friend. I see a man who came _this close_ to killing my mentor. I don’t know if he can be helped. I hope, for your sake, he can. But I need you to stop trying to endear him to me. I will do my job. I will keep the examiners safe and I will protect him as though he were any other prisoner. But I can’t see Ben Solo when I look at him. If I do, and if there is no Ben Solo anymore, then I am as vulnerable as you are.”

Jess held her breath for a moment. Calling General Leia Organa vulnerable wasn’t a brilliant idea on the best of days; doing so in the same breath in which you called her son a monster was potentially suicidal.

Leia nodded. “Poe was right; you are the only one who can do this.”

Jess shrugged. “That remains to be seen.”

“Have faith; the Force is with us.”

“You realize that is a silly thing to say to a null, right?”

“My husband didn’t believe in the Force, once.”

“Oh, yeah? What happened?”

Leia smiled. “He met my brother. Someone I understand you have a certain level of…admiration for.”

Jess blushed. “I may have asked Threepio to tell me a few tales.”

“Threepio is an unreliable narrator.”

Jess chuckled, sobering as she looked into the room again. “What are you going to tell people?”

Leia sighed. She knew she would have to tell the residents of the base something soon. While Han and Chewie had stripped the distinctive robes of Kylo Ren off her son before they landed on D’Qar, several people had been in the hangar and seen two people whisked away from the _Falcon_ on stretchers. Only one of them had made it to medical. If she didn’t make a statement of some kind soon, the base gossip would become too virulent for her to protect Ben.

“I am going to say we managed to recover a high-value asset from the First Order. For his safety and our own, we are keeping him isolated until we are sure the First Order isn’t coming for him,” Leia replied.

“Dangerously close to the whole truth. I like it.”

“Speaking of the truth,” she paused.

Jess turned to face her.

Leia looked her straight in the eyes. “You are going to learn things over the next stretch of time. Things you can’t ever un-know.”

“You can trust me to keep quiet.”

Leia gave her a sad smile. “I know that. But you won’t be able to look at any of us the same way—not me, my husband or my brother. I know Luke is a hero of yours.”

“That’s true. But heroes are meant to teach us to do better, be better. And sometimes we only do that by looking at their failures.”

“Well, you’re looking at one now,” Leia said, nodding at the unconscious man in the room.

Jess bit her lip and looked through the window. _I hope not,_ she thought. _For her sake, I hope not._


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe has long been Jess' sounding board, so she goes to him to find out why he recommended her to Leia for the protection detail.

“Are you going to yell at me?” Poe asked as he opened his door to Jess.

“No,” Jess said, pushing past him into his quarters.

“Are you lying?”

“Of _course_ I’m kriffing lying!” she shouted, whirling on him.

Poe sighed and closed the door, leaning back against it.

“Holy Crone, you look like shit.”

“I love you, too, Pava.”

She snorted. “Of course you do. No one else will run their fingers through your greasy hair and sing that old lullaby to you.”

“My hair is not that greasy.”

“I’d say your pillow makes you a liar, but we both know your head hasn’t touched that thing in days.”

“Didn’t you have some important meeting today?” he asked, walking across his quarters to his bed. He pointedly sprawled on it, making himself comfortable. Maybe he could feign falling asleep and she’d leave him alone for a few hours.

“Oh, please,” she said, climbing on the bed and shoving at him.

“Ouch! Dammit! Your elbows are ridiculously pointy! Do you sharpen those?” he asked, trying to dodge her. Before he knew what was really going on, she had maneuvered him onto his stomach, with his head in her lap and his cheek against her stomach. He gave her a one-eye glare.

“Yeah, it’s hard to put up a real fight when you haven’t eaten or slept for days. And before you glare at BB-8, I have eyes in my head.”

“BB-8’s not even in the room,” he muttered.

She tugged sharply on his hair.

“Ow! What the hells, Pava?”

“You should have just told me you were pissed at me.”

Poe groaned and pushed himself off her lap, moving to sit beside her, both of them leaning back against the headboard.

“I’m not pissed at you,” he said, leaning his head on her shoulder. He knew she believed him when she didn’t immediately shove him off.

“Really? You didn’t serve me up to General Organa for this insane assignment just so I’d stop bugging you about getting some rest?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t do it because I keep nudging you about that Jedi sitting vigil with your refugee stormtrooper?”

“His name is Finn.”

Jessika smiled. “Yes, it is.”

He rubbed his cheek on her shoulder. “I hate you.”

She reached up and ran a hand through his hair, thankful he couldn’t see the face she made. She was quite fond of the scruffy beard, but his hair definitely needed a wash.

“No, you don’t,” she said, a soft smile on her face.

“I don’t,” he agreed.

“So, why me?”

Poe sighed and slid down so his head was resting on her thigh, his arm across her knees. “I’ve known Leia Organa since I was a toddler.”

Jess ran her fingers through his hair, waiting silently for him to continue. Poe could talk and snark with the best of them, but she knew that when it was something like this—something that came from the deep parts of his soul—you had to coax it out of him solely through the strength of your presence.

“I love her in a way I haven’t loved anyone since my mother passed. When I woke up screaming in medical after Jakku, she was there, holding my hand. She wept over me. All my life, I only ever saw her cry twice—for my mother and for her own son.”

“She told you about Kylo Ren.”

He nodded.

“When they brought him back, she asked you to help him.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his face into her leg, his hand clutching at the fabric of her pants. “I’m sorry.”

She put her hand on the back of his neck. “Shh. I understand. Get some sleep. It’s your turn to relieve Rey in medical tomorrow morning. She’ll never leave if you look like you belong in a bed next to Finn. You may be one of the most charming men in the galaxy, but greasy hair and an unwashed odor do not a woman woo.”

He huffed out a laugh. “You are the worst wingman in the galaxy.”

She laughed and tugged on his earlobe. “I’m going to remind you of that insult on your wedding day.”

“Worth it if it gets you into formal dress.”

She pushed him off her lap, manhandling him until his head was on his pillow. “Get some sleep; I’ll send BB-8 to check on you later.”

Poe nodded, already half asleep.

If anyone ever dared ask, he would deny he dreamed of the fierce Jedi with flashing eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is really the story of the reclamation of Ben Solo, but I needed to know why Poe recommended her. And then it got really angsty and I just needed for there to be some BROTP time. And because I can't help myself, I had to reference Rey/Poe.

**Author's Note:**

> I know canon has Jess being an admirer of Luke Skywalker, but in my head canon, once she met Han Solo, he became her mentor. I realize I have to get wibbly with the timeline to make that work (i.e., Han has been in and out of the Resistance's orbit since the Jedi massacre), but I'm hoping you guys will forgive that.
> 
> I'm not sure how many chapters this will be. My intention is for it to cover only the early days of Ben Solo's redemption, with other stories carrying the arc through.


End file.
